The first weekend of September hosted another race of the CNV, the national Portuguese prototype championship at the International Circuit of Algarve. This is the last race of the championship that Nicola will be able to attend due to his job commitments.
The weekend started with the free practices of Friday in which, during the whole day, the twins were absolutely faster than anybody. This confidence let them work on the car, gaining ever more time on the competitors. The team in fact noticed huge differences due to the track conditions during the day. This was because of the presence of another important GT championship: the Blancpain Series. The GT cars in fact leave a lot of tyre on the ground causing the prototype to gain too much grip, but thanks to the expertise of the two drivers in cooperation with their trusty race engineer, they have managed to understand a lot from it.
Qualifing went well with the fourth place in qualifing 1 and a good pole position in qualifing 2. Race 1 though has been full of surprises as the paddle shift broke down causing the gearbox to change gears on its own! This of course brought to a loss of pace during the race, causing the brothers to finish in fifth place.
The problem could not be solved during the night and therefore the twins had to start the race without the help of the paddle shift, therefore being forced to use the standard sequential lever. This brought less performance while braking, but anyhow both managed to keep an extremely high pace that let them to Victory.
Nicola: “I was very pleased to be able to cope with the fastest driver in this championship without the usage of the paddle shift. Downshifting fast is very difficult but I was able to gain with respect to the other drivers, except for what regards the last sector. It has been a very nice weekend and with the victory, I really cannot complain. The only problem is that now I have commitments with my job and I will not make it to the next event.”
Stefano: “Race 1 was hilarious. The gearbox just went mental and I did not know whether to laugh or cry. It just decided it wanted to upshift, so when I came out from the hairpin in second gear, it just went straight to sixth gear. Of course it caused us to be really slow. Race 2 was much better, the performance was there but the sequential lever was exhausting.”
